1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to systems, apparatus, and methods for recovering data and more particularly relates to systems, apparatus, and methods for collecting dump data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Dump data often includes data located in the volatile memory of a digital system (such as a storage controller) at the time of a processing error or failure. Dump data is valuable when assessing the performance of a digital system. Dump data may be directly associated with the performance of one or more hardware and/or software components of the digital system. Though the value of dump data is clear, current solutions to collecting dump data include certain shortcomings.
For example, many dump data collection solutions include inconveniently restarting the digital system commonly referred to as a warmstart. A warmstart is effective to collect dump data because a warmstart suspends operation of scan loops also referred to as event loops or work dispatchers to ensure the volatile memory data is not altered before it can be collected. In addition to requiring time, warmstarting a digital device often results in a storage controller busy signal being transmitted to an associated host computer which suspends system operations. Suspending system operations is more severe in systems that include multiple host computers, storage controllers, and storage devices.